**Key Takeaways:**
1. **Severe Weather Alert:** A potent storm system unleashed baseball-sized hail across Missouri and Kansas, causing significant concern and damage.
2. **Urgent Warnings Issued:** The National Weather Service in Kansas City issued urgent advisories, highlighting the immediate danger of the large hailstones and advising residents to seek shelter.
3. **Widespread Impact:** The storm affected 38 counties, bringing not only hail but also strong wind gusts, leading to a thunderstorm warning that spanned through Thursday morning.
4. **Community Response:** Residents shared images of the massive hailstones on social media, comparing them to common objects for scale, showcasing the unusual size of the hail.
5. **Traffic Disruptions:** The severe weather brought traffic to a halt on Interstate 70, illustrating the storm’s capacity to disrupt daily life significantly.
6. **Continued Threats:** Even as the hail threat diminished, forecasts warned of ongoing severe weather risks, including high winds and potential tornadoes, into Thursday morning.
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On a tumultuous Wednesday night, Missouri and Kansas were besieged by a severe storm system, unleashing hailstones as large as baseballs. The National Weather Service in Kansas City broadcasted an urgent message, warning of the imminent danger posed by the storm, particularly emphasizing the sizable hail. A thunderstorm warning was promptly issued, covering an extensive area that included 38 counties stretching from eastern Kansas to central Missouri. The primary concerns highlighted were the potential for significant hail and wind damage.
The severity of the situation was underscored by a tweet from the National Weather Service in Kansas City, which vividly described the perilous conditions in Wyandotte County, including Kansas City, Kansas (KCK). The tweet urged people to distance themselves from windows and seek immediate shelter, a testament to the storm’s intensity.
According to reports, the storm was capable of producing hailstones reaching 3 inches in diameter, accompanied by wind gusts peaking at 60 miles per hour. The community’s reaction to this unusual weather phenomenon was swift, with many taking to social media to share images of the so-called “gorilla hail.” This term, coined by storm chaser Reed Timmer, was aptly used to describe the extraordinary size of the hailstones, which were placed alongside rulers, apples, and tennis balls for comparison.
The impact of the hail was so profound that it caused a standstill on Interstate 70, as reported by the National Weather Service on X. The thunderstorm warning persisted into Thursday morning, but meteorologists anticipated that heavy rain and high winds would continue to pose threats in parts of Texas and central Missouri, even as the hail threat subsided.
Furthermore, the weather service reported tornadoes in northeast Kansas on Wednesday evening, indicating potential tornado damage between the towns of Dwight and Alta Vista. The forecast into Thursday morning included warnings of wind gusts up to 60 mph and the possibility of more tornado and hail threats, highlighting the storm’s extensive and varied impact on the region.